Tete-à-tête With Narendra Reddy, Chair of International Emmy Awards and COO of the Africa Channel

Narendra Reddy, Chief Operating Officer of The Africa Channel, is set to chair the prestigious 52nd International Emmys Awards Gala in New York City on November 25. The role highlights his significant influence in the global media landscape and underscores the channel’s growing prominence on the international stage. India-born Reddy immigrated to the United States, where he built an impressive career in media over the past 15 years, blending his cultural heritage with a commitment to showcasing diverse narratives.

Based in Los Angeles, Reddy has been instrumental in steering The Africa Channel’s strategic direction, particularly in production, programming, and acquisitions. His extensive experience includes a notable tenure as general manager for DreamWorks Animation India, where he played a pivotal role in overseeing major productions such as “Puss in Boots,” and “Madagascar 3.”

Reddy’s leadership extends beyond The Africa Channel; he previously served as president of Reddy-or-Not Entertainment, providing development and consulting services to top-tier clients including NBC Universal. His accomplishments include developing the U.S. Kids TV channel, QUBO, and spearheading key marketing initiatives for ION TV.

American Kahani spoke with Reddy recently about the International Emmys, his vision for The Africa Channel, and how his diverse experiences have shaped his approach to leadership in the ever-evolving landscape of international media.

Congratulations on being invited to chair the 52nd International Emmys Awards Gala Awards in NYC on November 25th! As the chair what do you oversee for the awards gala?

Thank you! As the chair of the International Emmys, it’s an honorary position that not only gives me the ability to both participate and speak at the main event but also more as a recognition of the importance that the International Emmys has placed on the work that I have been doing with them for the last couple of years — particularly to elevate an entirely new geographic section of the world to the International Emmys organization. I have been, as you know, with the Africa Channel for over 10 years. Just to give a little bit of background — the Africa Channel was set up to bring more contemporary narratives about Africa to the West, particularly changing the narrative from being just a continent of strife and safaris and sunsets, to really educate people that it’s actually 54 countries with thriving cultures.

How did you get involved with the International Emmys?

A couple of years ago I got involved with the International Emmys because I felt that one of the big things that I was seeing in my role heading The Africa Channel is the quality of content from the continent wasn’t keeping pace. Even though there was an explosion —particularly Nigeria being the second largest producer of content — the quality and the storytelling weren’t getting elevated to the same standards as India, Israel, or Turkey, and wasn’t doing as successfully on the global stage. Some of it is tied to the resources available on the continent, and the exposure and ability to connect to resources. So I felt the International Emmys could be a good organization to work with us to raise the profile of Africa, [and] get African media companies to collaborate with each other. If they [the African media companies] were able to pool their resources, and partner with international companies, we could really make more from what little they had.

So, for the last couple of years, we have been hosting the semifinal jury for the international Emmys in South Africa. The jurors were made up of a panel of senior media executives and talent from major media companies around Africa. We’d always follow that up with a big event, and conversations began to happen that typically would not have happened in the past. The international Emmys recognized that this was a big piece. Even in their [Emmys] organization, the number of award entries — compared to the rest of the world — Africa was very limited. The Africa Channel and the International Emmys shared a common vision of bridging cultures through storytelling. So particularly in this environment that we’re in, the [International Emmys] board did me the honor of inviting me to be the gala chair. I’m also hosting a panel discussion about Africa — changing the perceptions of African media on the global stage. Most importantly, I get to speak and say a few words on the main stage, which I plan to use to continue elevating the profile of Africa.

You have been a part of The Africa Channel (TAC) family for over 10 years now, starting out as executive vice president and general manager, and now COO for over 2 years. Was it an education for you to understand the African and African diaspora culture when you joined TAC? Tell us about your journey from when you started out and your evolution as COO. 

Good question! What is a guy from India who studied engineering reluctantly, worked in the management consulting sector, then — to the chagrin of my family — left, and went into the entertainment sector at NBC and worked at Dreamworks, suddenly finding himself advocating for Africa, particularly because I’m not from Africa, and I’m not African-American? Very good question. In fact, that was the very question I asked the owners of The [Africa] Channel when they first asked me to take this job — “You realize my background?” And there were two things that they said. One, they said, “You understand international media,” because for the last 20 years, I’ve been working in the international space. I ran the studios for Dreamworks Animation in India, and I’ve done international productions. More importantly, they recognized how I wanted India represented in the global media space. 

Having been born in India and grown up in the West, you don’t want India to be represented in any type of stereotypes that prevailed. Now of course, India has a sort of a seat at the table, if you will. But Africa still was suffering from all of the stereotypes. The second reason: they felt that I would be able to look at Africa with a more Pan-African lens. Remember, Africa is a continent, so no individual from any country, even in Africa, can effectively speak about Africa as a whole any more than somebody from the outside. And so to the question you were asking — that was what attracted me to even taking this job in the first place. 

It was also very interesting to me that nobody at that time — none of the major media companies — were paying any attention to this phenomenal continent. So I said, “wow, this is an opportunity for me to get involved.” And it has been an amazing ride. if you look at Africa through a cultural lens, you will see India is such a big part of the whole eastern seaboard of Africa. Their heritage comes from India. Most people don’t know that because they only think of it from the West African mindset because a lot of West Africans have immigrated to the States. So I think of Africa, in culture, as being as rich as any other part of the world where people of Indian origin, the Middle East, from all over the world call it home. 

And with that, I think comes a plethora of storytelling and great ideas. I feel like looking at stories through a different cultural lens, much like “Slumdog Millionaire” or “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” — they were all tropes that you kind of understand. But what made them phenomenal was the specificity of the different cultures. So I think [in] Africa, it’s wide open for that type of storytelling. So, good, bad, or indifferent, I’m in this role. A lot of people looked at me and went, “What is this guy doing? What does he know about Africa?” And I said, “You know what? The universe put me in this space and I’m going to own it, claim it, and do the best that I can.”

You spoke about the influence of Indian culture in Africa, especially in the East Africa region. How does this translate into some of the programming at TAC?

I don’t know if you know this, but one of the most popular genres in Africa is Indian. All our Indian soap operas do off the charts in Africa. Increasingly what [the audience in Africa] would like to see is a little bit more representation of Africans in Indian soaps. So, some companies like Zee TV and others are starting to redo their formats and have both Indian and African cast in those shows. Also, there’s also a lot of opportunity for cross-cultural development between India and Africa in the music scene. For example, doing Bollywood dances to Afrobeat music. So I think there’s plenty of opportunity not just from the American to African space, but also from the Indian to African space. And I think in this cross-cultural storytelling, we could come up with some really fun, interesting and exciting new things in the content space.

With AI dominating the creative industry do you have any plans to work with these tools to integrate them into the content being represented at TAC? If not, what are your plans for TAC in the next few years?

I think AI, chat GPT and all these technologies are extraordinarily important. We have started to integrate that, not so much in the creative end of it, but in operations and post-production. For example, we’ve already started developing one of the most forward-thinking approaches to dubbing. We’ve developed an internal proprietary process to dub content from English to say Portuguese and French. As you know, Brazil is one of the largest markets — 52% of the Brazilian population is Afro-descendant, and a lot of content is not available to them from Africa because it’s so expensive to dub. We’ve discovered processes now to do that really inexpensively. So suddenly you’re opening up African content to an international market. We are definitely incorporating AI very much into the processes. 

In terms of the future of TAC, as you know, in our business, it’s tough – we’ve survived for 15 years as an independent company, both as a cable channel and as a production studio. Luckily, I think the universe is on our side and we’re in the middle of some big financial conversations, which unfortunately I can’t get into in detail. But hopefully, in a month or so we’ll have some big announcements that will only position the company even better, to go out into the world and do what it’s doing with significant capital behind it. And then hopefully there will be more opportunities for developing content and storytelling and claim Africa’s rightful place on the global stage.

(Top photo:  Narendra Reddy, COO, The Africa Channel. at the International Emmy semi-final jury in South Africa, Sept. 4. Photo: The Africa Channel)

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Sunil Sadarangani is a Los Angeles-based award-winning producer and writer.